Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro

I saw this as a kid and thought it was an OK adventure movie. But seeing it again in middle age just blew me away. It really is the story of a man's life: looking back on lost opportunities, failed loves, and (as it's so beautifully described in the script) "losing the scent" in your life's direction. Gardner is mesmerizing; Hayward is dynamic. The Bernard Herrman score hits the mark again. And the set decoration and cinematography are superlative examples of the studio system at its most artistic.

Of course, the fact that jazz immortal Benny Carter plays tenor sax during a Paris party scene adds an enormous amount of cool points to this movie for me!

I usually like old films and the title and cast of this one seemed a good bet. What a disappointment. Peck is grossly miscast - he's just not the gigolo he's portrayed, nor does he look like a man who's dying. Nor does 'Cynthia Green' convince me, even the name is too boring for the beautiful Ava Gardner. And the 'hunting' scene - sorry, standing in front of somebody else's adventure backdrop is again unconvincing as are the actual rhino shots, another time another place. The whole script is endlessly boring and I can't wait to get rid of it to the charity shop where I found it. And the 'Africans' - who are they kidding? 'What's he gonna do, sprinkle me with monkey dust?" Oh Lord, somebody please put him out of his misery and dismantle the set. The 'natives' did try to sound as though they'd learned their lines and that unconvincing chant with the luckless rhino head on a stretcher PULEASE! i don't know how painful gangrene is but Peck sure is bearing up well considering he only had his bandage changed but once and did he utter a sound when Hayward lanced the horrid green swelling? Nope, just looked his normal handsome self. Perhaps Humphrey Bogart might have managed this ponderously awful script better..but even he can't do miracles. The only one who deserved an Oscar was the hyena sniffing around the tent with a view to his next meal.

A successful writer (Gregory Peck) lays gravely injured and almost dying from an African hunting accident on the Kilimanjaro's skirts . He remembers his past life and women through numerous flashbacks set in Paris (Montparnasse) , Spain (during civil war) and Africa (Kenya , Kilimanjaro) . Peck's relationship with various lovers (Ava Gardner , Hildegard Nef , Susan Hayward , and Gene Tierney , Anne Francis were also considered for these roles) are the spotlights of the movie , while in a safari tent he is awaiting medical attention to save his gangrenous body and caring him Susan Hayward .

It is an Ernest Hemingway's autobiography based on short tales , specially two novels : ¨Fiesta¨ and ¨Farewell to the arms¨, as the film creates a pastiche where is reflected the author's life . The main yarn about Africa develops an original structure in which other stories emerge . The motion picture has spectacular sets and wonderful outdoors , although there are some stock-shot from Africa . The warlike scenario is good , it's very well shot the Spanish civil warfare , we don't know if it's the battle of Guadalajara , Madrid , Teruel o Ebro , but sure that is referred to anyone those terrible wars . The picture has a little bit boring and being slow moving , in spite of different scenarios , thus it is developed in Africa , Spain , France and other European countries . Nice acting by Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner is attractive and enjoyable . Gregory Peck resisted taking the role because an earlier Ernest Hemingway adaptation he had appeared in , as ¨The Macomber affair¨ (1947) had been a box-office flop . Support cast is frankly good , such as : Hildegard Knef , Leo G. Carroll , Torin Thatcher and Marcel Dalio .

Leom Shamroy's cinematography is stylized and colorful , as it is brilliantly shown in the African landscapes and the episode of bullfights spectacle . Nevertheless , there was some adequate second unit work shot in Kenya , the main actors shot their African scenes in Hollywood . The classic musician Bernard Hermann composes a romantic and agreeable musical score .The motion picture was uneven though professionally directed by Henry King . The movie will appeal to romantic drama enthusiasts and Gregory Peck , Ava Gardner fans.

Gregory Peck leads an all-star cast in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," a big 1952 film directed by Henry King and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. With a cast that includes Ava Gardner, Susan Hayward, Hildegarde Neff and Leo J. Carroll, and a story based on a story by Ernest Hemingway, one expects something more - much more - than what is delivered by this plodding film.

Peck plays a writer with a severe leg infection. As he lays in Africa waiting for a transport while his wife (Hayward) cares for him, he believes he's dying. He goes over his past life and loves - a girl he disappoints in his youth, then Cynthia (Gardner) the love of his life, followed by Neff, and Hayward, whom he mistakes for Cynthia when he first meets her.

Henry King mixes some beautiful scenery with stock footage of Africa. Since it's Hemingway, the movie has a macho sensibility - a lot of hunting, drinking, implied sex, and a bullfight. It's only in the last couple of scenes that the film's energy picks up - but by then, it's too late. The performances are okay - strangely, Gardner's character seems the most fleshed out. That isn't saying much - one gets the impression a lot was cut, leaving holes in characterizations and the viewer completely detached from them. Altogether, a disappointing experience.

Many critics and fans love this movie, the best of all Hemingway stories on film perhaps. I think this film is so because it is honest, somewhat autobiographical and derived from a splendid and mature short story of enduring fame.  The plot line of the film is simple.  In a fever because of an accident, Harry lies perhaps dying, tended by his third wife in a camp in Africa.  His delirium causes him, through a long night spent waiting for help to arrive, to relive in his mind the triumphs, disappointments, sorrows, loves and moments of his somewhat unsatisfactory life as an author. He is bitter and takes it out on his wife; but he does not KNOW that he is going to die--so he continues to pester, ask questions, make demands, and study the reverie in his thoughts--which viewers see as extended flashbacks. As Harry Street, Gregory Peck is mostly very good indeed, exactly right for the role not of Hemingway but of a man who had lived what the author describes in the storyline.  As the wives, Hildegarde Neff is cold, beautiful and skilled, showing us how she tried to control Harry and protesting that she had loved him as much as she could.  The first wife, Ava Gardner, plays her part admirably as a young, not-important woman who wants domesticity not excitement (as Harry does), wrecks their union to have a child and drinks herself to death. The third wife, played amiably and with intelligence by Susan Hayward seems almost the product of Harry's training. And if finally she has come to understand, accept and even want his way of life, we assume that finally all will be well at the end.  The medical help arrives; and Harry will live to write more; he wants in fact very much to live again. There are amazingly enjoyable scenes in this big-appearing film--bullfights, a wartime scene, Mediterranean yachts and villas, Paris, and Kenya; and more. it is beautiful, moving and often thought-provoking.  Also in the cast are veterans Torin Thatcher, Leo G. Carroll and Marcel Dalio, all doing superbly.  Henry King directed; Casey Robinson wrote the script; and Leon Shamroy provided stunningly beautiful cinematography.  Harry may feel in the film that he has compromised something to become a success; but he still talks about the snow leopard once found frozen on Mt. Kilimanjaro at 18,000+ feet. He wonders what the leopard was seeking at that altitude--Hemingway's and Harry's parable for human mental curiosity and the sometimes perverse desire to invest much to achieve eventual greatness.  The film may not quite measure up to this famous conception;  but it is grand in mental scale and interesting throughout.